


Peppermint Patrick

by Tabbyluna



Category: Peanuts
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Haircuts, Trans Male Character, Trans Peppermint Patty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27696028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabbyluna/pseuds/Tabbyluna
Summary: He was a man. When he first realised it, the fact hit him like a train. But it made a lot of sense.
Relationships: Charlie Brown & Peppermint Patty, Marcie & Peppermint Patty
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Peppermint Patrick

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a comic a terf made. I did it to spite terfs, but mostly, I did this in hopes that I could make a trans Peanuts fan happy. I hope this turned out okay, even though I wrote this in a day and it's kinda short. 
> 
> Just so you know, I'm uploading this while I'm supposed to be in gym. Good thing about quarantine school: I can turn off my camera and pretend I'm participating in gym when I'm not.

He was a man. When he first realised it, the fact hit him like a train. But it made a lot of sense. For years, since around the time he began middle school, something felt wrong about his life. Most expected him to grow out of being a tomboy. Mostly his teachers and his friends’ parents, with a couple of exceptions. It simply wasn’t cute for a ‘grown girl’ to act like that anymore - act in a way similar to a boy - and so they tried to stop him.

Lucky for him, they never managed to drag him down for long. He had his Dad to thank for that. No matter what happened in life, he knew Dad would always have his back. His Dad was always there, sticking up for him, defending his right to wear and act however he wanted. “My kid’s a good kid,” he said. “And no matter what, my child will always be a rare gem to me.”

Though he was happy that Dad supported his right to be a tomboy, the term began to feel less fitting by the day. And he wasn’t quite sure why. Until one day, when Marcie came over to his house, and she started talking to him about some new books that she was reading.

“Transgender?” He asked. “What’s that?”

“Oh, well, some people feel like their internal sense of gender doesn’t fit who they are on the outside, and so, they decide to physically transition,” she explained. Marcie cracked open her book, and showed him pictures. Stunning people, some who looked rather strange, but all of whom looked happy. “This book is filled with the stories of trans people.”

He wasn’t usually interested in books, but that time, he was intrigued. “Can… can we read some together?” He asked. And Marcie agreed to it.

At age seventeen, he finally discovered who he was. He came out to dear old Dad first. Over dinner. He got treated with a hug, and a promise that no matter what, he’ll still stand by him. “You’re really all I have left,” said Dad. “Your mother would always want you to be true to yourself. Thank you for telling me.” And when he asked him what he needed, he told him he would like a haircut and a binder first.

Binders were expensive, but he promised to save up just to get one for him. “For now though, I think I can get you that haircut.” The next day would be a Saturday, and they both had some time off for that to happen. So when her Dad went off to work the night shift of his job, he waited in such anticipation. When Dad returned home, and rested up from his job, he rested alongside him. And in the afternoon, they were ready to go out.

Chuck’s father was a barber, he knew that. And incidentally, that was also where they went to get that haircut. He once had his hair cut by Chuck’s father, because he had an ice skating competition coming up and he wanted his hair done. Back then, he thought that he was a boy. Thinking about it now, it was actually rather interesting how things turned out. He had to laugh under his breath.

When they entered, there was no one there but Chuck and his Dad. From the looks of it, he was getting his hair cut that day too. And when he was done, he turned, saw then, and his brow raised. “What are you doing here?” He asked.

While Dad talked with Chuck’s father, he explained it to him. “So, I'd been thinking about it for a while, but I have decided that I’m actually a dude.”

Chuck seemed surprised. “You can do that?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah. Marcie told me about it, about trans people one day, and uh, I ended up thinking a lot about it,” he explained. “She and I, we read a bunch of stories about trans people together, written by trans people. And the first thing I really thought right then and there was that... those really matched my experiences.”

Chuck nodded, listening intently. “I see. Well, will you be going by another name now? I’d hate to call you anything you’re not.”

Oh, his name. Strangely enough, he didn’t actually spend much time thinking about that. He had been so caught up in the excitement of finding a label which finally fit him, after ‘tomboy’ began to feel less and less like him, that he forgot to think of a new name. “Er, well, I didn’t actually think of a new name… how about Patrick?” That was pretty close to his birth name. And Patrick Reichardt did have a rather nice ring to it. 

Chuck nodded. “Yeah, alright.” And then he was called up. It was time for his haircut.

It felt strangely good to see his hair get snipped away. It fell off his shoulders, down onto the floor. Snip after snip, it got closer and closer to a style that was boy-short. And once it was done, he gasped. His hair had not been that short in a long time, but it felt so  _ right _ . “Is this good?” Asked Chuck’s father.

“Yeah!” He replied, then thanked both the barber and his Dad. Dad paid for the haircut, and they both headed home.

When he headed home, he first ran up into his room to check himself out in the mirror. In his baggy green shirt and board shorts, he already looked pretty masculine. But with the new haircut, he now looked much closer to what he wanted to work towards. He posed in front of the mirror for a while, flexing his muscles, checking himself out from new angles.

And then the thought to call Marcie dawned on him. 

Of course, he needed to thank her for this. She was the one who even told him that this was something that could be done. Plus, she was his closest friend. It was only fair that he told her this new fact he learned about himself. 

He reached for his phone, and dialed her number. Funnily enough, he wasn’t really the type to be active on social media. A good number of the school was, but he simply never really saw much of the appeal. He just preferred to do things in real life. Still, he kept his phone charged, mostly because it was a handy way of reaching his friends or his Dad via phone call or text message. And incidentally, Marcie was one of his top contacts. “Hello?” Said the voice on the other end of the line. It was her. 

“Hey, Marcie. I’m trans.” He was simply excited to tell her. “I go by Patrick now, in case you want to know.”

And for a while, there was silence. Until Marcie broke it. “Huh, I see. Well, that does make a lot of sense now.”

“Yeah, uh. I recently got a haircut.”

“That’s cool,” she said. “I wonder though, does this mean I can call you ‘Sir’ now?”

She hadn’t called him that ever since they entered middle school. And for a while, he was kind of happy about it, until he began missing it. He grinned when he heard her say it again. “Yeah, I guess you can.”

“Great,” she said. “I guess I’ll be seeing you at school, Sir.” 

“Seeya, Marcie.”

And with that, they hung up. Patrick smiled, and turned off his phone. 

**Author's Note:**

> For the people who might get mad at me 'taking away representation' of a tomboy, uh... I'm a gender non-conforming girl. And honestly I think we ought to have some solidarity with trans men because well, we have similar experiences. Obviously trans men aren't girls, but we still did go through some similar stuff. I say that characters are ideas, you can do literally whatever you want with them. So a trans headcanon ain't gonna hurt anyone. You can write a character cis one time and trans another time, or write them exclusively cis, or exclusively trans. Whatever. They're a character, as long as you're not an asshole to real people it doesn't matter. Plus, sometimes the difference between a gnc girl and a trans man is time. 
> 
> The important thing is to have *more* stories. More stories talking about all different types of experiences by all different types of people. That way, we won't all be starved for good content. Why fight for scraps when we could make our own feast?


End file.
